The Hong-Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has alerted that people in Murshidabad district are dying of starvation while the government authorities have not taken any effective action to stop the deaths. One five-year-old boy is reported to have been eating dirt before he died. According to a local doctor, "The entire area is under threat of insufficient nutritious food." In a report sent to MG, the AHRC said quoting a local NGO, Masum, that no government programmes to address starvation are properly functioning in the area despite the fact that the local authorities are well aware of what is going on. Upon getting this report on 7 March, MG editor at once brought it to the attention of the President of India, West Bengal CM, Chairmen of NHRC, NMC and West Bengal human rights commission, UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Country Director of World Food Programme in New Delhi and Syed Shahabuddin, President, All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat. We have not
received even an acknowledgment by the MG press time late on 9 March. «